Path to Vengeance
by Rydia Asuka
Summary: P3 one-shot. Shinji-centric. A dark alley, a rampaging monster, a bone-chilling scream. Accidents happen, some have consequences worse than others. Lives can be destroyed so easily over a small thing. An accident. Yet it all comes full circle in the end.


**Disclaimer**: I do not own Persona 3, or any of its associated characters, plotlines, or ideas.

**Spoiler Warning**: Spoilers for Ken's door is FES.

**Dedication**: Happy Birthday Susan. I hope you like your gift. –heart- This for you, Hun. Hope life gets better soon.

**Path to Vengeance**

"Hey, Shinji, wait up!"

At the sound of his best friend's voice, Shinjiro Aragaki halted his frantic dash to allow the grey-haired teen time to catch up to him.

Panting, Akihiko Sanada ran a hand through his short, sweat streaked, grey hair.

"Man, Shinji, chill out. We'll catch it, it's not like the Shadows don't stand out. It's not going to escape if we don't catch it yesterday."

Frowning slightly, the tall brunet grudgingly nodded agreement. Akihiko was right. Dashing around recklessly was as likely to get them killed at it was to catch them a Shadow. Still, the thrill of the hunt was upon him, and he felt like he could take on anything the world decided to throw at him right now. He felt almost an obsessive desire to annihilate anything that stood in his path. The feeling, while exhilarating, was almost terrifying.

"Hey, you okay? Shinji?"

Brushing the thoughts aside as adrenaline, the hardened teen shrugged and pointedly looked around.

"I'm fine, Aki. Let's just go catch those damned things."

Shaking his head in silent amusement, Akihiko agreed.

"If you were a Shadow, where would you hide?"

"Somewhere dark?"

Rolling his eyes at Akihiko's attempt at humour, Shinjiro fingered his evoker as he set off down the street again, this time at a far more maintainable pace.

"I'm serious Aki, we need to kill these things, not crack jokes.

"Have you even thought to ask Mitsuru?" asked Akihiko, waving the communications device beneath his friend's nose.

"Her abilities are limited; she can't tell us w—"

"—but she can give us a place to start," Akihiko pointed out, cutting the brunet teen off completely. "Isn't that all we need at the moment? A general area? We can worry about the specifics later."

Snatching the device from the grey-haired teen's hand, Shinjiro pressed his thumb onto the button to open the link between themselves and Mitsuru Kirijo, their intelligence division. Or as close as they had to one, anyway.

"What is it?"

At the sound of the strong, feminine voice crackling in his ears, Shinjiro wasted no more time.

"Aki and I need to know where the hell we're supposed to be looking. This damned goose chase isn't getting us anywhere."

The sound of a sigh crackled in the air for several seconds before the redhead deigned to speak again. "Yes, Aragaki, if you hadn't cut communications earlier...regardless, I sense a powerful presence somewhere on Port Island. Probably between the school and station, or somewhere in that general vicinity."

Without another word, the tall teen cut communication and shoved the device into his pocket.

"Guess we're headed to the island."

"You could be a little more polite to her."

Ignoring Akihiko completely, Shinjiro set off across the Moonlight Bridge.

Unperturbed by his friend's silence, Akihiko carried right on with his lecture. "If you hadn't cut her off before we would have been saved a lot of aimless running."

Shinjiro just continued to ignore him as the two jogged along. It was all just a normal occurrence for them.

* * *

Stroking his great axe, Shinjiro pressed himself into a wall, waiting patiently as Akihiko checked his boxing gloves yet again. Nothing could be worse than heading into battle unprepared, and if the noises coming from around the corner were any indication, then battle was going to be coming soon.

The two had arrived on Port Island only minutes before, and had easily followed the trail—with Mitsuru's help, even if Shinjiro would never admit it—to the sky-train station. From there it had been a simple task of listening. The Shadows knew not the meaning of stealth and silence. The two teens had had no difficulty in following the sounds and destruction to the alley behind Port Island Station, where they were currently hiding, and getting ready in the hope of ambushing the disgusting creatures.

Glancing over at Akihiko, Shinjiro barely waited long enough to mentally process the slight nod sent his way before waving his right hand, middle two fingers folded inward.

Not bothering to wait and see if Akihiko had seen and understood the silent cue—of course he had, they had spent long enough developing an entire network of hand signals—the brunet leaped out from hiding, axe upraised.

Behind him, Akihiko slipped out into the darkness that existed only for sixty minutes at the stroke of midnight, watching and waiting for his own moment to strike.

Brown eyes quickly took in the scene as he shifted his axe to his left hand, using his right to wrench his evoker free from its holster. There was only one shadow present, yet it seemed to be enough of a threat, even on its own. That was not the worst of it, however. In fact, Shinjiro was certain they could handle the monster easily enough. It was the presence of a civilian woman that was going to complicate things. Badly. The fact that she was conscious was certainly no blessing, either. Obviously the Shadow had been meaning to make her its prey. Well, it was a good thing they had shown up when they did.

Placing the gun-like evoker to his temple, Shinjiro wasted no time in pulling the trigger. "_Castor_!" In a brilliant flash of light, the Persona was wrenched from his body. Hopping forward on its one-legged mount, the mail-clad monster split the air before it in a vicious Fatal End attack. With a cry of shock, the Shadow fell back, a section of its armour cloven clean through.

With a sharp cry, the woman pivoted on her heel and dashed away into the night.

Snarling with rage, the dragon-like Shadow feigned a lunge at Shinjiro, who swiftly dodged back, axe flitting in front of his torso for protection, before dashing off into the night after the woman.

Mentally berating himself for falling for such a simple tactic, the brunet made to sprint after the monster, only to be stopped as a giant, spider Shadow dropped down before him.

Throwing himself back, Shinjiro fell to the ground in a frantic effort to stay alive. Raising his axe to shield his face, he braced himself for the impact.

"_Polydeuces_!"

Shinjiro let out a relieved breath as the tall, mail-plated Persona bashed the Shadow back.

"Thanks, Aki."

"Go after it, I'll watch your back."

Giving Akihiko a thumb's up, Shinjiro dashed off after the woman and Shadow. The streets were silent as he dashed along, his boots making the only noise in the eerie darkness. Until, that is, a sharp scream shattered the stillness.

Cursing, Shinjiro dashed forward, straining to run faster than he ever had in his life before. All of a sudden he staggered forward into a horrific scene.

"H-help! Help me! Please, oh please! _**Heeeelp**_!"

At the sight of the pretty, redheaded woman screaming for him to save her, blood coating her torso and the ground, Shinjiro's lip lifted in a silent snarl. Evoker already in his hand, he placed it to his head and tightened his finger on the trigger.

"_Give it your best shot_!"

Castor emerged in a brilliant flash, leaping forward to slice clean through the offending Shadow...only to find that the beast had already fled.

"Dammit!" Dashing over to the woman, he sighed and shook his head. Yet another victim of the Shadows.

Rising, he took off after the monster. Society was going to have to look after her. His job was to catch and kill the Shadows that did this to people, and right now he had one in his sights.

Emerging from the back alley, Shinjiro smirked as he saw the creature waiting for him. Now he was going to kill it.

"You ready for this?" he asked calmly, raising his evoker to his head. Pulling the trigger, the brunet unleashed Castor, intent on destroying the Shadow before him.

With a blinding flash, Castor emerged, ripping forward to effortlessly cleave the weakened, exhausted Shadow in half. With a howl of agony, the monster dissipated into the night, utterly destroyed.

It was then that everything went wrong.

With a wordless scream, Shinjiro's hands flew to his head, clenching it tightly as red-hot stabs of pain shot through his head and down into the rest of his body.

Struggling to keep his weak knees from giving out, the brunet felt scream after scream tear from his throat, agony seeming to course through his very being to stab into the heart of his soul. Due to his agonized state, Shinjiro was completely oblivious as the Dark Hour faded away, leaving a normal late night in its wake.

A short distance away from him, Castor ran amuck, his power out of control as his host cried out in agony. With a soundless scream, the Persona ripped forward on its single-legged horse. Heedless of whatever stood in its path, Castor cut through anything and everything. Shinjiro's mind only faintly registered the sound of a window shattering over the sound of his own wails. Digging his nails into the skin around his temples, he tried to regain some sense of what was happening. He could hear crashes that he _knew_ were coming from somewhere close by, yet felt as if he were experiencing them from miles away.

Forcing his head upright again, he struggled to gain a conscious train of thought. The house...why was Castor ripping apart a house? From somewhere within the building he heard a sharp scream, then another, followed by yet another. Wait. There were people in there? He...he had to stop this!

"S-stop! Castor! Stop this, dammit! "

Heedless of Shinjiro's pleas, the Persona kept tearing forward, intent on absolute destruction of the building.

"Castor! **Castor**!" he cried out again, one hand pressed to his forehead. "Fuck, stop it dammit!"

Even as he yelled, Shinjiro was cut off by a loud rumbling from within the house and a far more understandable scream of '_Ken!_' from within. Eyes wide with horror, the brunet watched as the house's very foundations shook and collapsed, the whole building falling in upon itself in some sort of twisted implosion. Dust exploded into the dark air as one final scream shattered the night.

"_**Keeeen**_!"

Even as the last wails faded into the night, Shinjiro's hands flew back to his head as he cried out in pained agony once more. In perfect harmony with his screams was the final tempo of beams falling and finally crashing to the ground not twenty feet in front of him. The noise was enough to snap him back to reality long enough to turn and dash away. He needed to find Akihiko.

Hand still held to his forehead, Shinjiro felt Castor return to him even as he dashed into the back alley.

"A-Aki! Aki! Where the hell are you?" he yelled, voice dry from the screaming he had been doing, and clogged with dust from the collapse. "Aki, where are you?"

"Shinji? Shinji! What the hell happened? I heard a huge crash, it sounded like a house fell over."

Relief flooded through the brunet at the sight of his closest friend. Sinking to his knees, he shook his head slightly to clear it, thankful that the headache was passing.

"Shinji?"

"Shut up! I'm trying to figure out what the hell just happened."

Realizing that his friend needed a moment to collect his thoughts, Akihiko fell silent, granting him the time.

"Aki...I think I just killed someone."

Startled by the unexpected statement, Akihiko whirled on his friend, eyes wide.

"W-what?"

"Castor...he went out of control and...he...he destroyed a house, dammit! There was someone in there! There was! I heard her screaming!"

Frowning, Akihiko processed the information slowly. Finally he turned to face Shinjiro, whose face was looking distinctly pale.

"Stay here, I'm going to go check it out."

"I'm coming."

"Stay here and recover, Shinji."

"I'm coming, dammit. Don't even fuckin' think of stopping me."

With a sigh, Akihiko nodded.

Silent as shadows, the two friends crept back through the darkness, before finally alighting on the scene of absolute chaos. Policemen, ambulances, fire trucks, media, civilians; it was all there. From their hiding place, the two teenagers watched as a covered stretcher was lifted onto the back on one ambulance and shut away.

"Mom!"

Their attention was diverted at the cries of the young boy who struggled free from the grips over several paramedics who were tending to him.

"Mom! Mom! How is she? Tell me!"

Shinjiro's heart clenched as one paramedic, a young woman, knelt down and whispered in the young boy's ear. With a cry he fell to his knees, sobs echoing even over the ever-present sounds of sirens, engines, and people. That was one face he would never, ever forget. He had just killed the boy's mother. Never could he forget. Never.

Rising, Shinjiro began walking away, not bothering to turn and face Akihiko when he heard the other man join him.

No words were exchanged between himself and Akihiko as they made there way back to Iwatodai and their dorm. There were no words to speak that would change anything. Not yet, anyway.

* * *

The night passed, and morning dawned, bringing with it a dreary rain, fitting perfectly with the mood of the three assembled Persona-users. Mitsuru had already been filled in on everything Akihiko knew, and now the two were waiting for Shinjiro to join them, for only he knew what had really happened.

At the sound of heavy footsteps thumping down the stairs, Akihiko shot up and went to greet his friend.

"Shinji..."

Eyes bloodshot from a sleepless night, Shinjiro shook his head. "I know what you're going to ask me, and the answer is: I don't know. Castor went out of control, and I barely remember anything past that except a headache and a lot of friggin' screaming."

Frowning, Mitsuru made her way over to them, fiery hair cascading over her shoulder and across her chest.

"Why did he go out of control? Nothing like that has ever happened to natural Persona-users before."

Shinjiro scowled at her, eyes glinting.

"I told you already, I don't know! We killed the Shadow, and he just lost it."

"Nothing happened that doesn't normally? Did you feel anything at all? Tell me, Aragaki! This is serious!"

"I told you, I don't know! Now shut the hell up!"

"Shinji...calm down. She's right. Try to think. Do you remember anything out of place from last night? Anything at all."

"Dammit, Aki! I told you, there was nothi—wait."

"You remember something?"

Pausing, Shinjiro finally nodded in response to his friend's inquiry. "Last night...I felt weird. Like I wanted to fight more than anything...I've never felt that way before. Not like that."

Frowning in deep concentration, Mitsuru finally nodded.

"I'm going to go talk to our technicians. Maybe they can work out what happened. Until then I'm going to have to keep you from missions, Aragaki. I hope you understand."

"Tch, whatever."

"Good. I was afraid you would have a problem with that."

"Just don't die without me there to watch your ass, Aki."

As Mitsuru walked away, Akihiko, who had ignored the jibe, turned to Shinjiro, concern etched on his features.

"Hey, you okay? What happened last night...it was pretty serious."

"I'm fine. Shit happens."

"Don't feed me that crap, Shinji. You're torn up."

Without bothering to reply, the brunet turned and made his way back up to his room. What did they know anyway? He had...he had killed someone! An innocent woman! A _mother_! The kid's terrified, devastated face was etched into his mind; nay, his _soul_.

Collapsing onto his bed, he gripped his head with both hands. He...he had to leave. What if this happened again? What if next time...it was Akihiko who was killed? Hell, he could not let there _be_ a next time. He was going to have to learn to control this on his own. There was nobody who could help him learn how to control his power but him. He was utterly alone in this.

Dumping his armband and evoker onto the table beside his bed, Shinjiro grabbed his few belongings and was gone from the dorm hours before anyone even suspected. He would find the answers. First about what had happened, and then about how he could ever repent.

'I'm sorry, Ken...'

* * *

_Well, there goes my first attempt at a Persona fanfiction; written from Shinji's point of view no less. He was a hard one to write. I hope I succeeded in at least keeping him mostly in character. It's not like this wasn't written on very short notice. –sweat- I barely got the rough-draft done in time for my friend's birthday, as this was her gift. But I got it done, and it has since seen a lot more revision, so that should help. _

_I hope you all enjoyed it. Especially enough to leave me a word or two? Please? It doesn't take much. Just a few seconds out of your life. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. I know well that this thing is far from perfect. I had no beta, a strict deadline, and...yeah, that's about it. Still, it's enough. So if you want to tell me where I went wrong, go for it. I had trouble proofing this myself._

_Also, to clear a couple of things up: the woman in the first scene is a victim of Apathy Syndrome, she was not killed. However, back then they did not know that. So yeah, Shinji didn't really _know_ what Apathy Syndrome was yet. Also, the title probably seems a bit odd. The deal with that is I mean it to be seen from Ken's point of view. This is the event that started him down his path of revenge. Hence the title. _

_Well, that's about all I have to say other than please review? I love hearing from readers! _

Once again: Happy Birthday Susan. I love ya girl.


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